Two years after their debut album, the Italian, "gritty yet dreamy" shoegazers, for whom the noise and the melodies can easily coexist together, are back. The new album takes the audience for a brief, but wonderful trip into the hazy soundscapes of indie rock melodies and fuzzy guitars.
The band have supported or will soon support quite big players of the noisy pop-rock music (Slow Crush, The Raveonettes, Softcult) which is great. Nothing makes me as happy as seeing artists who deserve it being recognized. And the Italians surely do. They try to balance the noisy atmosphere of shoegaze with extremely melodic pop songs, perhaps slightly towards the latter. But it works, the results are as catchy as songs can be, especially in the first part of the album with What a Feeling and Nirvana really standing out.
The song that best represents the second half is Slap, a perfect example of a well-written chorus. The album is said to touch the notion of "emotional contrasts across its two distinct halves that reflect light and dark". Its visual representation is the cover art with a match about to die down, the moment right between the two opposites. You can kind of hear it in the music too, but I wouldn't say it's the first thing that catches attention of the listener. More than the ideological basis, one focuses on how perfectly catchy the songs are. Well done.
SONIC costs 10 EUR.
Check: Slap
Country: Italy
Genre: melodic shoegaze